Order and Continuity: Methods for Change in a Topological Society

There is a remarkable proliferation of measures, maps and models taking place today. Some have described this proliferation as the rise of a market in methods, others suggest that we are witnessing a tipping point or even a crisis in methodological expertise and authority. As it becomes clear that methods do not simply measure but also - as they are implemented - change the world in which they operate, what methods 'do' is a question that has come to matter to many different actors.

This project investigates how methods of social research enact the world, and how they are evaluated by those who use them and by those whose activities they measure. It asks, what trust can we place in the use of practices of sorting, naming, numbering, and calculating as they are brought together in 'method assemblages' of modeling, measuring, and mapping? Can, for example, efficacy be reconciled with reliability and validity? How can translation be extended responsibly between measures? Do the methods being used today connect to individual or collective motivations for change? If not, what measures might do this? How can we develop measures to support diverse, multi-valent modalities of action? As methods proliferate, and come into competition with each other, the project seeks to find, if not common measures, at least shared criteria by which we might evaluate methods.

To do this, the project comprises four studies of the contemporary use of methods: economic modeling, the networking of digital economies, brand valuation, and the mapping of urban spaces. In each case, it will adopt an innovative experimental methodology, the testing of which is a key part of the project. This methodology involves a doubled focus: taking methods as the object of the study and as tools for collaborative research. Working across disciplines and across the often fiercely patrolled boundary between the academy and professional social research it investigates the intended and unintended effects of the diverse methods used in each of the case studies, feeding back these findings to those conducting the research, and collaborating to revise and develop the methods anew. And on the basis of these four experimental studies it seeks to develop a shared framework for the evaluation and development of methods of social research.

Previous investigation has found that many measures in use in methods today are specific to the entities they represent, and are internal and active, rather than external and reactive; that they support participation as much as representation; and create not just attentive and responsive but formative knowledge spaces. Importantly, as the methods are iteratively and adaptively applied, they change what they measure, and make that change a measure of their own success. In this way, they make change normal: a condition for innovation and social intervention. The current economic crisis is a case in point, but it is not exceptional.

The PI has proposed that the specific characteristics of the change being produced in this way can be understood in terms of society becoming topological. Topology initially developed as a field of mathematics: its power lies in its ability to analyse continuity and change together. In algebraic topology, this is done by exploring the mathematical functions of ordering and continuity of transformation. This project proposes that social processes of ordering and continuity of transformation - of tracking and tracing, of comparing and connecting - are now emerging in expert and lay practices of measuring, modeling and mapping - and changing the nature of decision making and evaluation. Exploring this hypothesis, and experimenting with the practices of measuring, modelling and mapping the project will investigate how this change in change itself contributes to the creation of new forms of social value, as well as transforming processes of social differentiation, of inclusion and exclusion, and mobility.

The project involves the trial and evaluation of an interdisciplinary and collaborative research methodology. It is designed to contribute to methodological innovation and debate in academic and professional practice. The impact pathways have been developed so that the research will meet each of the ESRC's categories of impact: instrumental, conceptual and capacity building.

The instrumental impact will be innovation in the methods of social and economic research and the criteria for their evaluation of methods in policy, industry practice, market research and service provision.
The conceptual impact will be the development of a new set of concepts to understand change, and a reframing of the role of methods in evaluating change.
The capacity building impact will be the building of personal skills among academics and professional researchers so as to develop capacity to engage in interdisciplinary and collaborative research.

The key stakeholders are economic and social research organisations in public policy, market research, business, and the third sector. They include: National Institute of Economic and Social Research*; NatCen Social Research; NESTA*; EPIC (The Ethnography Praxis in Industry Conference, supported by Intel, Microsoft and Google)*; Institute for Fiscal Studies; ESOMAR; Third Sector Research Centre*; WARC; Social Research Association; MRS*; QS (Quantified Self Movement)*; Academy of Social Science*; United Kingdom Evaluation Society; Royal Statistical Society*; Radical Statistics Group*; Local Authorities Research and Intelligence Association; British Urban and Regional Information Systems Association; Government Social Research Service; UK Data Archive.

The PI's professional contacts in organisations marked with * have expressed interest in involvement in the impact pathway activities. On this basis I believe it will not be hard to get participation from representatives in the others.

The distinctive impacts of this project derive from its explicit focus on the performative power of methods, and the link it makes between this power and a new vocabulary for the identification and description of social change. While it is widely recognized that there is always a link between the kinds of representation made possible by specific methods and forms of intervention, an exploration of this link has often been excluded from methodological debate, as a link that happens after the facts have been established. The impacts of the study are tied to its ability to make the dynamism of this link explicit in discussions with stakeholders, inside and outside the academy, and to explore ways to make the link productive.

The stakeholders already have as a principal concern the rigour and efficacy of the methods they employ, and seek to uphold the highest standards; some already engage with how methods themselves enact or open on to specific kinds of economic and social change. So, for example, one of NESTA's recent projects - to develop a new Innovation Index - was a response to the recognition that previous indices produced unhelpfully limited policy agendas. But the wider implications of the dynamic and adaptive role of methods are not often made explicit. The impact of the project will stem from its ability to explore these implications in open debate, and with the benefit of the findings of empirical studies focused on exactly this issue. It will also stem from the project's focus on whether and how methods contribute to new forms of social value, social differentiation, and mobility. The thesis of society becoming topological provides a powerful way to do this, as it provides a new conceptual vocabulary of continuity and change. The overall impact will be to contribute to methodological debate and practice in the social research sector and promote a reflexive engagement with how 'the empirical' enters industry, public policy and everyday life in terms of the capacity to enhance change.